Religion

Topics represented

Religion (351) · Buddhist traditions (97) · Hindu traditions (62) · Chinese traditions (61) · Judaism (43) · Islam (42) · Christianity (34) · Empire and state (20) · Daoist traditions (19) · Catholic Christianity (17) · Sunni (16) · Roman Empire (14)

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1. 1492

   Expulsion from Spain

   The expulsion decree reshaped Sephardi communities across the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and the Americas.

2. 1501

   Safavids and Twelver state religion

   The Safavid dynasty made Shiʿi Islam the official religion of its new state; key to Iranian history without homogenizing its society.

3. 1516–1517

   Ottoman conquest of Syria and Egypt

   Annexation included the Holy Cities and reorganized the relationship between Ottoman authority and pilgrimage centers.

4. 1517

   Public beginning of the Lutheran Reformation

   The circulation of Martin Luther’s 95 theses against indulgences opened a controversy that transformed churches, states, and reading cultures. The story that they were nailed to a door is not undisputed documentary fact.

5. 1521

   Diet of Worms and imperial condemnation of Luther

   Luther appeared before the Diet, and the Edict of Worms placed him under imperial ban. The episode consolidated conflict among reform, ecclesial authority, and the political structures of the Holy Roman Empire.

6. 1522 or 1552

   Zhishi-Xuanyue Gateway

   The Zhishi-Xuanyue Gateway marks the entrance to Wudang. UNESCO dates it to 1522, while China Daily gives Jiajing’s 31st year, 1552. The discrepancy remains unresolved.

7. 1526–1707

   Hindu traditions in Mughal India

   Temples, elites, and local law changed unevenly; neither uniform coexistence nor uniform persecution fits.

8. 1526–1858

   Mughal Empire

   An Indo-Islamic empire of subcontinental reach, marked by religious and cultural patronage and changing relations with diverse communities.

9. 1534

   Act of Supremacy and England’s break with Rome

   Parliament declared Henry VIII “Supreme Head” of the Church of England. The English Reformation changed repeatedly under later monarchs; this act is an initial institutional point, not its final definition.

10. 1537

    Sublimis Deus bull

    In 1537 Paul III declared that Indigenous peoples should not be deprived of liberty or property or reduced to slavery because they were not Christians. It was a normative papal intervention, not general civil legislation: it did not by itself halt conquest, coerced labor, or other forms of colonial domination.

11. 1539

    Francisco de Vitoria’s relectiones on the Indies

    The De indis and De iure belli lectures, delivered at Salamanca in 1539, examined title, communication, war, and conversion in Castilian expansion. They were scholarly arguments in theology and natural law, not enacted legislation; their later uses do not remove their colonial and intellectual limits.

12. 1540

    Approval of the Society of Jesus

    The bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae approved the Society of Jesus. Its educational, missionary, and intellectual networks were central to Catholic renewal and global expansion.

13. 1545–1563

    Council of Trent and Catholic renewal

    The council defined Catholic positions on Scripture, justification, sacraments, and clerical reform amid Reformation controversies. It was a three-stage process and its implementation varied by region.

14. c. 1550–c. 1551

    Valladolid debate

    The Valladolid controversy set arguments by Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda against each other on conquest, war, and the status of Indigenous peoples. It was a political-theological junta and debate, not a court issuing a final, binding judgment that by itself transformed colonial law.

15. 1555

    Peace of Augsburg

    The Holy Roman Empire’s settlement legally recognized Lutheranism alongside Catholicism under cuius regio, eius religio. It did not include other Protestant branches and left conflicts that resurfaced in the seventeenth century.

16. 1562–1598

    French Wars of Religion

    A succession of wars pitted Catholic and Huguenot factions against each other, intertwined with dynastic and power struggles. It is shown as a plural political-confessional conflict.

17. 1572

    St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

    Killings of Huguenots began in Paris and spread to other French cities. It was mass violence against Protestants within a conflict of power and religion; victim totals remain debated.

18. c. 1574

    Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas

    The Awadhi retelling of Rama became an influential devotional text with diverse receptions.

19. 1583

    Jesuit–Confucian dialogue

    Matteo Ricci reached Macau in 1582 and settled in Zhaoqing in 1583. His encounters with scholars and officials opened exchanges, translations, and disputes between Christianity and Chinese traditions.

20. 1598

    Edict of Nantes

    Henry IV established limited worship guarantees and civil rights for French Protestants in an officially Catholic kingdom. It was conditional, revocable pacification, not universal religious liberty.

21. 1618–1648

    Thirty Years’ War and Peace of Westphalia

    The conflict began in a confessional Holy Roman Empire context and became a European war involving multiple powers. Westphalia reordered jurisdictions and confessional recognitions; it was not a war only about religion.

22. 1645–1694

    Rebuilding and expansion of the Potala

    Potala is rebuilt and expanded in the seventeenth century, linking political, monastic, and artistic authority.

23. 1648–1649

    Khmelnytsky Uprising

    Violence destroyed many Jewish communities in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; victim estimates vary widely.

24. 1674–1818

    Maratha ritual patronage

    Maratha networks shaped shrine patronage and regional politics; a state is not all Hindu traditions.

25. c. 1740–c. 1772

    Emergence of Hasidism

    The movement associated with the Baal Shem Tov developed devotional and leadership networks in Eastern Europe, alongside mitnagdim responses.

26. c. 1770–c. 1830

    Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment)

    Intellectuals and educators promoted linguistic, educational, and civic renewal, with varied effects by region and social class.

27. c. 1772

    Colonial construction of “Hindu law”

    British administration reshaped plural practices into colonial “Hindu law” categories.

28. 1782–1819

    Bodawpaya and the Thudhamma council

    According to Roger Bischoff’s survey, Bodawpaya settled a dispute over monastic dress and appointed a council of senior monks. The date covers his reign and does not assign a single year to every reform.

29. 1791

    Jewish emancipation in France

    The French Assembly recognized full Jewish citizenship; it became a reference, not a uniform model, for Europe.

30. 1796–1804

    White Lotus crisis

    The White Lotus War in central China set local rebellions against the Qing state. Yingcong Dai’s research emphasizes how government military and financial management prolonged the crisis.